


Utterly Unsubtle Symbolism (wearing his heart on his sleeve, or something like that, anyway)

by kaberett



Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Bad Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-22
Updated: 2012-06-22
Packaged: 2017-11-08 06:54:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/440382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaberett/pseuds/kaberett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Count Adhemar has a problem. An enormous problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Utterly Unsubtle Symbolism (wearing his heart on his sleeve, or something like that, anyway)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so, so sorry. You're a lovely fandom and you don't deserve this. I WAS LED ASTRAY. ;_;

Adhemar wanks himself into a frustrated frenzy before collapsing back onto his (opulent, goose-down, brocade) pillows, guilty and sticky and furious. He's pretty sure – well, he hopes anyway – that none of his manservants have yet heard him chanting the name of Ulrich von Liechtenstein from Gelderland, but he knows in his heart that it's only a matter of time.

He resents them all. He resents his herald. He resents Ulrich. Defender of his enormous manhood...! Why on _earth_ would he need to _defend_ it? He knows – he _knows_ – that this was Ulrich's doing. He doesn't know how and he doesn't know why but (he snarls, to the empty room, before he's realised he's speaking aloud) if defence of his manhood is what Ulrich wants then by _God_ and the Devil too defence he shall have.

***

The sunlight's bright, his tunic's too tight, and bloody Ulrich is bloody standing next to him bloody receiving a bloody prize. And then. And then with his gorgeous curls and his ridiculous voice Ulrich tells him that he, Adhemar, will look up at this jumped-up (drop-dead) country knight from the flat of his back.

Adhemar is torn between vicious rage and pathetic gratitude for the sturdiness of his (capacious) cod-piece, so he takes refuge in baiting and sarcasm. (Maybe, maybe, maybe if he judges it right? Ulrich will come at him, be banned from the circuit, and be dependent on squiring to keep himself fed. … a man can dream.)

(Of course, it's roughly the same reasoning that underlies his negotiations over Jocelyn. Point the first: she is something Ulrich wants. Point the second: she will bring him wealth and, not to put too fine a point on it, defence of his enormous manhood. Point the third: he supposes he'd better beget a son sooner or later.)

***

Bad enough, he rages in his tent, to have disgraced himself rutting after a good-for-nothing country knight. Bad enough to have suffered the humiliation of the discovery. That he should have jousted against a peasant–!

He stalks in a swirl of cloak through the damp and wretched streets of London to the gaol. He wafts through, comandeering a guardsman to give him directions, and dismisses the lackey with a wave when he reaches the door.

Count Adhemar looks through the grille, and he grits his teeth as his (mountainous! mellifluous!) manhood twitches unbidden. He refuses – refuses! he is a knight, in full posession of his dignity and his self-control! – to beat himself off in public, so supposes he had best settle for beating up the target of his ire and of his lust: for all that he has humiliated himself over this man, he feels that Ulri- _William_ deserves a little... retribution.

The walk back to his lodgings is an extremely uncomfortable one.

***

Unfortunately, even what little satisfaction he gains from the violence evaporates to horror (horror, he tells himself: this is not envy, it is _not_ ) when – watching from horseback, from the shadows – he sees Edward unhood himself, and can do nothing but stare as William willingly kneels before him, meekly bows his head. He vanishes back to the tournament ground in a flurry of hooves.

***

Adhemar, his herald knows, has never quite been the same since that defeat. It has been mentioned once and once only: after his lord and master had been picked up and dusted off and half-drowned in a keg of beer, he growls, “The things I would do to that man with a lance.”

No more is said of it.

Adhemar curls up on his (opulent, goose-down, brocade) bed that night, and he curls around his aching cock, and as he weeps he promises himself that he'll never touch it again.

Touching, though, turns out not to be the problem. More of an issue is the thoughts that plague him – yea unto his dying day – of just what it is he wants to do to Sir William Thatcher with his fist-tipped lances.


End file.
